Tag Archives: Robert E. Howard

Novalyne

Novalyeb Price Ellis (1908-1999) was born today, March 9. She was a school teacher in Cross Plains when she met Robert E. Howard. They dated off and on for the two years preceding his death in 1936.

She turned her diaries from that time into the memoir One Who Walked Alone in 1986. She supposedly wrote the book in response to L. Sprague de Camp’s biography of Howard, Dark Vally Destiny. My understanding is that she did not appreciate the way de Camp portrayed Howard. She was not alone in that.

But I digress. Continue reading

A Little Bronze Book of Weird Tales by Robert E. Howard

A Little Bronze Book of Weird Tales
Robert E. Howard
Borderlands Press $32.50 Sold Out

This one sold out fast. You pretty much need to preorder the Little Books from Borderlands Press if you want to get one. Even then, it’s not a guarantee. I missed the Joe Hill volume because I waited until the evening to preorder.

But I digress.

Borderlands Press has been publishing these small collections for quite a while. I believe they are on the  fourth series of them. They are currently $32.50 and run about 130 pages.  They are nice little hardbacks and are signed and numbered.

Their current series is looking at classic authors of the weird and fantastic. Previous authors include Arthur Machen, Henry S. Whitehead, Ambrose Bierce, and J. Sheridan LeFanu. I’m enjoying the heck out of them.

I don’t know about the current series, but at least some of the older titles are available in ebook for only a few bucks if  you don’t want to shell out the cash for the print edition.

So, what does the Robert E. Howard volume look like? Continue reading

Robert E. Howard, Second of Three

Born Januarry 22, 1906, Robert E. Howard is the second of three birthdays that fall every other day here in late Janaury. The first is A. Merritt, whom I wrote about two days ago.

I’ve been writing about Howard and doing birthday posts for him for years, so I’m not sure what else I could say. I’d better think of something, though, because I have a REHUPA article due by the end of the month, and it needs to be four pages.

I’ve got time. (Famous Last Words.)

So, today I want to talk about Howard’s work ethic as a writer. Writing practices have been on my mind lately, so I thought I would examine a few of Howard’s. Continue reading

Clark Ashton Smith and the Ballantines

Today, as I’m writing this, it’s January 13. Or to put it another way, it’s the birthday of Clark Ashton Smith (1893-1961). I’ve been on the road since  I got off work  this morning, and only got home about forty-five minutes ago, which is why I’m posting this so late. Most of you probably won’t see it until tomorrow.

I say all that to say that I’ve not had a chance to read anything by Smith today, so I’m going to do something different. I’m going to take a brief look at the four CAS collections Lin Carter put together for the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series. That’s the Ballantine I reference in the title of the post. I’m not going to put “Adult Fantasy” in the title.

As an aside, do you have any idea what comes up if youtype “Ballantine Adult Fantasy” into a search engine? Hint: Don’t try this at work.

Continue reading

Jack London

Today, January 12, is Jack London’s birthday. London (1876-1916) was one of Robert E. Howard’s favorite authors.

I confess, I haven’t read much London. I’m slightly familiar with White Fang and The Call of the Wild because they are so well known.

Of course, decades years ago, I read “To Build a Fire” in one of my high school English classes. I don’t recall which one, nor do I remember much about the story. From what I’ve seen, it’s the obligatory Jack London story to include in high school literature books.

I have read a couple of other Londond stories.

“A Relic of the Pliocene” concerns an encounter with a mammoth. It’s a good adventure story. It’s been quite a while since I read it. I’ll have to give it a reread.

The other story, which I read as a kid and have reread at least once, is “Moon Face”. The details of this one have stuck with me better, maybe because I read it while I was young and the story imprinted itself on my  memory.

One man hates another man. The hated man loves to fish using dynamite. So the man who hates him gets a dog, trains the dog to fetch sticks, then gives the dog to the man he hates. You can probably figure out the rest.

London isn’t a writer you hear a lot about these days. I think that’s a shame, but then I can say the same about a number of writers who have passed from the scene.

I can certainly see how Jack London’s works would have resonated with Robert E. Howard. London’s themes, as I understand them, deal  with man’s survival in a wilderness environment. I have been wantiing to read London, more than the little I have.

So, those of you out there who have read London, what do you reccommend? Where should I start? I’m open to suggestions of short stories or novels.

 

REH and Some Pulp Editor Critiques: A Guest Post by John Bullard

While working on books for the Robert E. Howard Foundation, I happened to be digging through all of the typescript digital photo copies the Foundation has made from the Glenn Lord Collection. I came across many letters from various Pulp Editors and Publishers to Howard critiquing his stories or giving him advice, or saying why they rejected his submissions. Rob Roehm had published most of the correspondence from Farnsworth Wright and Otis Adelbert Kline to Howard in the wonderful The Complete Letters of Doctor Isaac M. Howard, but most of these other letters have not been published for interested folks to read. I gathered them all and have edited a booklet that may hopefully be published sometime soon. I thought a look at a few of the letters might be interesting for the insights they give into what Robert E. Howard was dealing with in his writing career. Continue reading

C. L. Moore’s PS – A Guest Post by Will Oliver

Yesterday was Robert E Howard’s birthday, and tomorrow is C. L. Moore’s. Will Oliver provides another guest post about their correspondence. Thanks will.

C.L. Moore’s P.S.

By Will Oliver

C.L. Moore (Catherine Lucille Moore, January 24, 1911—April 4, 1987) was a fan of Robert E. Howard’s writing. As she once explained to R. H. Barlow in an April 1934 letter, “I’d like to read everything Robert E. Howard has ever written. The first story of his I read was WORMS OF THE EARTH, and I’ve been a fanatic ever since.” Moore had a brief correspondence with Howard toward the end of his life and one of the early extant letters is dated January 29, 1935. She addresses a wide array of topics, praises Howard’s writing, and then signs-off. However, she added an interesting postscript that read:

P.S. I just wanted to remark that

‘We pinned our hope

To a rotten rope

And the Man from Galilee.’

In the faint hope that you’ll recognize it. Those three lines are another of my pet ha’nts, and absolutely anonymous so far as I’m concerned.

Continue reading

Robert E. Howard Guest Birthday Post by Will Oliver

Today, January 22, is the birthday of Robert E, Howard (1906-1936). I’ve done a number of birthday posts on Howard over the years. This year I decided to do something different and post an article by Will Oliver.

Will sent me this article a couple of months ago. We’ve gone back and forth on some of the words Howard uses in it. One particular racial term, actually. Will quotes Howard directly. I consider the word in question offensive. Most people do. But I also find whitewashing the past (no pun intended) offensive as well. If we don’t know the past with all its inherent ugliness, we risk repeating it.After some discussion, we’ve decided that I’m going to use the first letter of the word and replace the other letters with asterisks.

Consider this your trigger warning. If even Continue reading

The Parrot from REH’s “Shadows in the Moonlight” – A Guest Post by Will Oliver

I’d like to thank Will Oliver for this guest post and apologize for taking so long to get it up and for the funky look of the poetry. Formatting poetry in WordPress is surprisingly nontrivial.

Howard’s originally titled Conan story, “Iron Shadows in the Moon,” saw publication as “Shadows in the Moonlight” in the April 1934 issue of Weird Tales Magazine. In that story, a “great parrot” appears voicing a strange cry:

As she peered timidly into the shadows between the trees, something swept into the sunlight with a swift whirl of wings: a great parrot which dropped on to a leafy branch and swayed there, a gleaming image of jade and crimson. It turned its crested head sidewise and regarded the invaders with glittering eyes of jet.

“Crom!” muttered the Cimmerian. “Here is the grandfather of all parrots. He must be a thousand years old! Look at the evil wisdom of his eyes. What mysteries do you guard, Wise Devil?”

Abruptly the bird spread its flaming wings and, soaring from its perch, cried out harshly: “Yagkoolan yok tha, xuthalla!”‘ and with a wild screech of horribly human laughter, rushed away through the trees to vanish in the opalescent shadows.

Continue reading

Ambrose Bierce’s Birthday, with a Guest Appearance by Robert E. Howard, Part 3: The Effects of Psychological Terror and Obsession

This is a guest post by John Bullard. I apologize for taking so long to get it posted. (Family medical issues required my attention.) Take it away, John.

I didn’t get a chance to post this article up on writer, reporter, and Civil War veteran Ambrose Bierce’s actual birthdate of June 24th due to work, but better late than never. I had originally started what has become an unexpected series of only thinking about what appeared to me to be the obvious influence Ambrose Bierce’s writing had on two of Robert E. Howard’s horror stories. I later was struck by how much another Bierce story seems to have influenced another Howard story. As I finally got around to reading another Howard story that I haven’t read before, I immediately saw the influence of Bierce’s writings on it, too. I feel that with these 4 stories, I can show that Ambrose Bierce, being one of Howard’s favorite writers1, definitely played a role on some of Robert E. Howard’s horror story writing. Continue reading